The Nightstar Zoo

Okay, I've got my work cut out for me. As the month turned from June to July, I dropped back into single digits. My June Buffer-Fu was weak.

July 1: Dropped to 9. Scripted one. Inked a Sunday and Monday. Prepped 9 days for coloring. Colored a Sunday. Buffer=11.
July 2: Dropped to 10. Pencilled 4. Inked 2. Buffer=12
July 3: Dropped to 11. Inked 2. Scripted 2. Grilled and launched fireworks. Buffer = 13
July 4: Dropped to 12. Inked a really, really tough one. (No really. It was that hard) Buffer=13.
July 5: Dropped to 12. Had a scripting breakthrough and scripted almost two weeks worth. Colored 5. Pencilled 4. Inked 4 (including a Sunday). Buffer =16.
July 6: Dropped to 15. Pencilled 3. Inked 3. Buffer=18
July 7: Dropped to 17. Scripted one (but it was a really tough one)
July 8: Dropped to 16. Colored one.
July 9: Dropped to 15. Drove to Boise. Scripted stuff in my head.
July 10: Dropped to 14. Met with Schlockers. Had fun. Drew unrelated stuff.
July 11: Dropped to 13. Drove home. Scripted more stuff in my head. Inked a Sunday and a Monday. Buffer=15.
July 12: Dropped to 14. The good news is, I thought I'd drop to 12 from the Boise trip, but I didn't. Pencilled 4. Inked 1. Buffer = 15.
July 13: Dropped to 14. Fought a cold all day. Inked 3. Buffer=17.
July 14: Dropped to 16. Wrote three scripts. Still fighting the cold.
July 15: Dropped to 15. Still sick. Inked two (including a REALLY easy one). Buffer=17.
July 16: Dropped to 16. Still sick. Saw I, Robot. Scripted three.
July 17: Dropped to 15. Pencilled 6. Inked 6. Colored 1. Scripted 7. Buffer=21
July 18: Dropped to 20. Colored 7.
July 19: Dropped to 19. Scripted another 7. W00t!
July 20: Dropped to 18. Pencilled a Sunday
July 21: Dropped to 17. Flew to Chicago.
July 22: Dropped to 16. Inked that Sunday, penciled another row. Buffer=17.
July 23: Dropped to 16. I've got 13 scripts ready to go, though, and here comes the weekend! Pencilled two, inked three. Buffer = 19.
July 24: Dropped to 18. Pencilled and inked three. Colored 7. Buffer =21
July 25: Dropped to 20. Spoke in Church. Got ready to travel. Colored 3.
July 26: Dropped to 19. Traveled. Colored 3
July 27: Dropped to 18.
July 28: Dropped to 17. Traveled home. Colored 4.
July 29: Dropped to 16.
July 30: Dropped to 15. Pencilled 2.
July 31: Dropped to 14. Inked 2, pencilled two more. Buffer=16

--Howard

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Creator and Cartoonist, Schlock Mercenary

(In Kill Bill kung-fu instructor voice)

Howard. Your buffer-fu is pathetic. You are like a dog! A dog who has been spayed! You are impotent and weak, and you want ME to motivate you? Come back when you are ready.

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Field Marshal in the Legion of the Damned

Corruption's a lot of fun. Are you sure you don't want to try it?

Howard, I don't have a livejournal account, so I'll respond to your entry about the relative quality of the strips vs what you can do.

Not only has your art gotten better over the years, I'd read Schlock daily even if it hadn't. I love the story and I love the art, but I'd come back every day for the story with poor art, but not the art with a poor story.

There are all ready plenty of comics that have good art that I don't read.

And now, the buffer dance:

Wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off, and rub and .... CRAP!, sorry, wrong buffer dance.

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Will dream up stuff for $$$$$. Preferably stuff that goes WHOOSH......BOOM!!!

Hey! cut the dice games.

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… there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States…
-- George Orwell

Come on Howard! Do that buffer-fu that you do so well!

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... I have the light locked in my hand, but it is the dark I understand ...

What he said.

Agreed as well. A few comics I've quit reading recently because of horrible writing/intolerable authors include Over the Hedge, Newshounds, and Sore Thumbs.

I read Schlock Mercenary because it's funny, and occasionally touching or profound. Also because Howard comes off as a genuinely nice guy who loves his wife and kids, not a bitter college student trying to make points for his agenda. Even if the art still looked like it did at strip #1, I'd still be reading.

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I'm the Uranium-Spewing Mecha Zombie that Destroyed City Hall

Violence is the last resort of the stupid. Smart people resort to it much sooner.

Strategy is just being a smartass with foresight.

I read Schlock Mercenary, because if I read less than 55 comics a day, this bus will explode.

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Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

Waitaminute... You actually *read* Sore Thumbs?



No gun to your mom's head? Really?

I... I don't knwo* you, man...

You think you knwo* some random person on the internet, and then they go and... man...

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This post is quad-ROT13 encrypted; reading it violates the DMCA.

The Crimson Terror

No doubt in the hopes that the chick in the comic would get naked at some point. C'mon, it's not like he confessed to reading something truly horrible, like... I dunno, what's horrible in webcomics land these days?

Sore Thumbs.

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Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, grab es tief unten im Keller ein.
Später dann graben es andere aus, und nennen dein Haus das Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, leg auch ihre weißen Schädel hinein.
Mit Beton gießt du es aus, das Fundament vom Knochenhaus.
Scharr, scharr, verscharr das Gebein, da ist noch Platz, da paßt noch wer rein.
Hier tobte sich der Teufel aus, unten im Keller im Knochenhaus.

So this is how one goes about ruining their own (minor) reputation. "But Honey, it was only a few times. Honest!"

Clearly the only way I can redeem myself is to memorize Year One of the Schlock Mercenary archives as penance. If any of the more seasoned forumites have better suggestions, I'm willing to subject myself to their sadistic whims.

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I'm the Uranium-Spewing Mecha Zombie that Destroyed City Hall

Violence is the last resort of the stupid. Smart people resort to it much sooner.

Strategy is just being a smartass with foresight.

Go here, click on 'Schlock Database', and transcribe a year's worth of the Schlock Mercenary archives. That should do.

You may need Kazriko to get access.

Heh. Drop a PM here in the forums and I'll set an account up...

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KazLJ: Politics, Gaming, Technology, and other wierdness

well, here´s the jackie-chan/drunken master approach to super-powerful buffer fu:
1. Crawl Between My Legs.
2. Drink, Boy! (it doesn't matter what you drink. just drink it.)
3. learn the technique "the 8 drunken cartoonists" and kick butt. because, you know, it's the ultimate buffer-fu.

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Death ray, Fiddlesticks! this thing doesn''t even slow them down!
Those are my principles, and if you don''t like them... well, I have others.

Got about 5 million Gmail invites to give away. i can't burn them for heat, so send me a PM.

As a lifelong procrastinator, I think he should not worry about a buffer - he should work day to day, like other web comics do. It would free him up to use ideas suggested in the forums and work them into the plot. Admittedly, the quality would suffer, but is that really what we come here for?

Oh yeah, I guess it is. Never mind then. Go buffer, go!